It Started With a Kidnapped Pig...

Hufflepuff

A dwarf who looks much more scary than he is. Unless he's angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Description:

Hufflepuff is a broad, muscular dwarf at home swinging an axe at his foes or swinging a hammer in the blacksmith’s forge. His orange beard is often braided, and his hair is shaped into a mohawk and made to stand up to increase his fearsome appearance. Hufflepuff often has his massive pet pig Cedric by his side, and sometimes even rides him.

Recently a halfling merchant named Roscoe Kalliwart has stolen Cedric, Hufflepuff’s pet pig. He petitioned his friends to help him, as well as a ranger he met called Windypop who agreed to help track Roscoe. The druids of Westwood also asked Hufflepuff to help Khagdar and Esplen with their mission for the Emerald Enclave. They have all set out from Kheldell, along the Kheldell path towards the town of Red Larch, following Roscoe’s wagon.

Reasons why Hufflepuff is travelling to Red Larch:

find his pig Cedric who went missing, believed stolen.

Emerald Enclave faction has asked Hufflepuff, Esplen and Khagdar to investigate the Dessarin Valley due to reports coming out of there about trouble.

Update: After finding Cedric in the company of bandits who had stolen him from Roscoe Kalliwart, Hufflepuff continued on to Red Larch with the rest of the party (after dealing with the self-styled Lord of Lance Rock). However Hufflepuff decided he was not cut out for adventuring. He does not want to abandon his friends altogether, and so has secured employment in Red Larch as a blacksmith. He’ll be there if they ever need him.

Bio:

Hufflepuff never did fit in with other dwarves, or rather dwarven society. Their laws, and order, and traditions just got on his nerves. He wanted to do good for people and not be hindered by rules about who dwarves were and were not supposed to be friends with. He was a warrior – strong but reckless, so his dwarven companions told him – who protected the clan mine in the Sword Mountains. He would escort the dwarf merchants who would pick up supplies at the nearest human village of Kheldell or rarer trips to Red Larch.

One time when Hufflepuff was escorting a caravan of dwarven merchants from Kheldell, a village on the edge of a forest, where various goods the dwarf mine needed had been bought. A sizeable force of cultists with evil mercenaries had approached the village after they had left, intent on robbing and worse. Standing between the village and the cultists were a handful of wood elves from nearby Westwood whose good nature would not let the villagers just suffer at the cultists’ hands. Hufflepuff petitioned the caravan commander for the dwarves to intervene as well, but the commander’s judgement was that humans should be left to fight each other and that dwarves lives were too precious. Anyway humans spawned like rabbits compared to dwarves. If elves wanted to risk their lives for humans then that was up to them.

Ignoring the threats of expulsion levelled at him, Hufflepuff left and returned to the village. He roused up all the fighting men and women there, visitors and villagers alike, and they all gathered and stood side by side with the elves. The mercenaries were surprised, but they still outnumbered the defenders. Their cultist masters goaded them on so they went ahead with the attack. However their heart wasn’t in it, and after a short, furious battle the mercenaries fled from the field followed by the cursing cultists. That day Hufflepuff fought side by side, and became friends with, a wood elf cleric named Khadgar and a half elf druid named Esplen.

Since then Hufflepuff has roamed the lands around Kheldell, doing good and helping people, and occasionally trekking back to his mountain dwarf clan mine home. His clan welcome him, but shake their heads at their wayward clansman. He has remained friends with Khagdar and Esplen.